Lucca, despite its small size, is a real survivor. It was founded by the Romans, and it's really striking to see it from above. That oval in the centre used to be the amphitheatre where gladiators would duke it out. Any trace of the Roman buildings is long gone, but the town grew around it, so the centre is still dominated by this now non-existent Roman building. You can even see the corridors that the gladiators would use to enter the amphitheatre, which are now arcades built through the houses to allow pedestrians to get to the center. Hard to describe, but it's pretty cool.

Like all the rest of Tuscany, the citizens of Lucca devoted most of their time to civil war. The Guinigi were the dominant family in Lucca, which they demonstrated by building the tallest tower on their fortress palace. The tower was used as a watchtower to spy on the other families, and to shoot at approaching enemies. All the big families had their own towers, albeit shorter, and, unique to Lucca, thought it would be nice to plant trees up there as well. They were wrong.

Despite the incessant warfare, they even had a brief taste of empire in the early 14th century, capturing Pisa and Pistoia, and laying siege to Florence until their ruler died of Malaria. The mini-empire crumbled shortly thereafter, but amazingly, while the rest of the Italian city-states were being gobbled up by the Pope, the French and the Spanish, tiny Lucca, along with Venice, were the only two to retain their independence. Lucca was able to stay a free republic until Napoleon's invasion in the early 1800's, whereupon it was finally annexed to the rest of Italy.